The amazing, spectacular, unstoppable Spider-Man? The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man — the 10-part Amazing Spider-Man saga by writer Joe Kelly (with guest writers Justina Ireland, Derek Landy, and Christos Gage) and artists Ed McGuinness, Gleb Melnikov, CAFU, Kev Walker, Andrea Broccardo, Niko Henrichon, and Mark Buckingham — put the wall-crawler through the wringer. As Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Doom made Spider-Man his champion against the eight scions of Cyttorak the Destroyer, who has long empowered Cain Marko as his destructive avatar on Earth: the unstoppable Juggernaut.
November’s Amazing Spider-Man #61 explained that Doctor Strange, the former Sorcerer Supreme, long ago entered into a covenant with Cyttorak: if he agreed to periodically face Cyttorak’s children in battle, the god would use the Crimson Casket of Cyttorak to protect the Earth from a destructive cosmic force called the Blight, Cyttorak’s eternal enemy. The contests took a heavy toll on Strange, but the Crimson Casket was the only way to shield Earthrealm from the Blight.
Doom delegated that responsibility to Spider-Man, granting him a magical armor and eight resurrecting Reeds of Raggadorr — a supply of additional lives the wall-crawler exhausted battling the scions Cyntros, Cyperion, Cyrios, and Callix. Spider-Man died repeatedly and used the remaining Reeds of Raggadorr to resurrect four civilians (including his Aunt May) who were killed when the Blight became aware of Earth and began to spread its “soul rot” like an incurable infection.
Blight possessed Callix, killed his siblings except for his sister, Cyra, and snapped Spider-Man’s neck, killing him a final time. With Spider-Man dead and the Blight about to destroy the world, only the X-Men’s Juggernaut, who draws his power from Cyttorak, was left to defend Earth. Cyra, inspired by the mortal Spider-Man’s sacrifice, then made a covenant of her own with Phil Coulson, the living embodiment of Death.
Cyra sacrificed immortality to restore Spider-Man to life and used her Crimson powers to turn Spider-Man into an unstoppable Juggernaut. In this week’s volume-ending Amazing Spider-Man #70, the Spider-Naut barrelled back to life, freed the Blight-corrupted X-Men, and aimed himself at Callix.
“Y’ever heard of a ‘fastball special?’ It’s an X-Men thing,” Juggernaut said, referring to the Wolverine and Colossus tag-team move. Juggernaut turned Juggernaut Spider-Man into a bullet, hurling the Spider-Naut into Callix.
As Juggernaut joined the X-Men in fighting the Blight’s earthly avatar, the massive Spider-Naut launched himself into space to fight the Blight. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange realized why Doom chose Spider-Man as his champion in the covenant: because he knew Spider-Man would sacrifice himself to restore the Crimson Casket.
Using Cyra’s Crimson magic, Spider-Man could continuously cast the Casket of Cyttorak as a living shield. Cyttorak told Spider-Man that the power granted to him would keep him alive for a century, but that the Blight, part of the primal fabric of the universe, would win, and his sacrifice would be for naught. He asked Spider-Man: “Why do you fight?”
“This is the only life I have,” Spider-Man said. “Most of the time, it’s hard… it’s not fair. Sometimes it flat out sucks. But it’s my life… there’s not another one like it anywhere. It’s beautiful exactly because it is so fragile. Every life is like that. Even if in a thousand years, my life and anything I ever did won’t matter… it matters today. Today is worth fighting for.”
And so the immovable Cyttorak was moved by Spider-Man’s words, and took his place as the living Crimson Casket, a barrier shielding the Earth and its realm from the Blight. In the end, Cyra had Callix imprisoned in the Crimson Cosmos, and it took dying and becoming a Juggernaut for Spider-Man to learn the lesson: life is unstoppable.
Amazing Spider-Man relaunches with a new No. 1, written by Kelly with art by Pepe Larraz and John Romita Jr., on April 9.
Spider-Naut teams up with the X-Men’s Juggernaut for an old classic. Read More